


no grave can hold my body down (i'll crawl home to her)

by amessofgaywords



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: F/F, ambiguous ending but hopefully in a positive way, dani the friendly wandering ghost, fulfilling my headcanon that ghost dani is slightly emo and dramatic, i just really couldn't leave them alone without writing this, once again inspired by hozier, so here we have some dead dani angst, they're so in love it's gross, though who wouldn't be at that point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:40:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27803938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amessofgaywords/pseuds/amessofgaywords
Summary: It isn’t until Dani dies that she fully understands the meaning of getting tucked away.or dani sleeps, she wakes, she walks, and she watches.
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie
Comments: 7
Kudos: 98





	no grave can hold my body down (i'll crawl home to her)

**Author's Note:**

> right, then. starting this with an apology: this is sad! again, i know. but there are fun, fluffy, not sad things coming soon! this just had to claw its way out of me first. so. please enjoy dani-style rambling and some good old fashioned ghost stalking.
> 
> title from work song by hozier. truthfully, this fic exists because i couldn't *not* write a damie fic for this song.

It isn’t until Dani dies that she fully understands the meaning of getting tucked away. Like Flora said, it’s disorienting. It takes a second to notice. She imagines it’s much better to be tucked away dead, though, than tucked away living, not knowing what some unknown ghost is doing with your body. It’s better to forget that you’re lying on the bottom of a lake with a pleasant memory of you and your wife drinking tea and reading on a rainy day.

Dani doesn’t mind being tucked away. It’s when she opens her eyes to water and sand and so much else above her that she starts to feel it. Panic, regret, sadness, and then the numb.

So Dani walks.

She gets up and walks. Not like Viola did, at least not at first. She goes everywhere. She wanders the grounds. She visits Jamie’s moonflowers. When she brushes her fingers over them, they curl open, bloom into the ghost of her. She walks through the roses and the statue gardens and then past the greenhouse and up to the manor and then through the doors and a bunch of empty rooms and where she used to sleep is so empty. It’s cold in there. Dani feels it on her wet skin the way a corpse probably shouldn’t.

She hums to herself sometimes. That little lullaby Flora liked. What was it… _We lay, my love and I, beneath the weeping willow._ She doesn’t know all the words, but she can’t seem to forget the melody.

She doesn’t know how long it takes her to figure out that the lake and the house aren’t the only places she can go. The closest, maybe, and the most comfortable, because there she’s alone. Or not alone. The ghosts of Bly Manor might be gone, but ghosts of their ghosts still linger. The faint scent of Hannah’s perfume. The reedy whispering of a faceless woman in the attic. Peter Quint’s smirk in a fogged glass.

Anyway, she can move. Go other places. It’s easiest when she’s in the water. She dreams up her mother’s house, with the sink constantly full of dirty wine glasses, or the Thames running parallel to the hostel she lived in for the six months before she came to Bly. She dreams herself into the bathtub in her apartment, but she doesn’t get out. She doesn’t want to wake Jamie.

Eventually, Dani gets tired of being _wet_ all the time. She climbs out of the bathtub and shakes the water off of herself. She looks in the mirror.

Once upon a time, mirrors _sucked._ They reminded her of everything that was wrong and broken and every time she looked in one she saw Eddie and his glasses and his dead, black face. Then there was Jamie and mirrors became good again. She looked in mirrors and saw a person Jamie thought was worth it, a person Jamie loved. When the Lady started coming, Dani stopped seeing that person. She started seeing a faceless – well, Dani doesn’t like to be mean, but you know what, yeah. She’ll say it. A faceless monster, instead.

In the mirror, Dani sees a woman. A woman not a day over thirty, or thereabouts. She has two blue eyes and blonde hair that is quickly drying in the dry, cold air of the bathroom. She is wearing a sleeveless purple shift. It’s long, it’s silk, and it feels like water. She has golden hoop earrings in, for some reason. Behind her, the water in the bathtub swishes, freshly disturbed.

Dani has a face. It makes her breathe a sigh of relief, dead or not.

The thing is, the rules of etiquette as a ghost aren’t exactly defined anywhere, not concretely. It’s more of an instinctual thing. Jamie comes into the bathroom, and Dani jumps, thinking _shit, she’ll see me, she’ll freak out,_ but Jamie just walks to the bathtub and stares at the water. It’s gone still again.

_I’m here,_ Dani wants to yell, _I’m right here._ But she remembers a night thirteen years ago, when Jamie looked at her and swallowed hard and Dani said _they’re opposites, really. Love and ownership,_ and Jamie said _yeah_ and Jamie talked about the wrong kind of love, how it could fuck you up, how you could trap yourself, and Dani knows that despite what Jamie might think, might desperately hope for, Dani isn’t what she needs right now.

Jamie drains the tub. She drains the sink, too. She stares in the mirror. She’s wearing Dani’s old pink shirt. Huh.

“It’d be bloody rude of you to miss the funeral,” Jamie whispers into the mirror. She shrugs the shirt to the ground with her underwear and steps into the shower. Dani hears the water go on and hears Jamie hiss when it hits her skin; she always turns the dial up too hot. She waits, sitting on the toilet cover, until Jamie gets out of the shower. She waits until she comes back to the bathroom, in a black dress and one of Dani’s denim jackets, to comb out her hair. She waits while Jamie looks in the mirror one last time.

“Bloody rude, honestly,” Jamie says with a sigh. Lighter than she looks. She leaves the bathroom, and Dani hears the bedroom door shut behind her.

Jamie’s right, it is pretty rude. So she follows her.

\---

The funeral is a quiet affair. It’s just Jamie and Owen and Henry, flew in from London, and a few regulars at The Leafling. Their old landlord shows up for a second or two towards the end. He rubs Jamie’s arm affectionately. Jamie takes the whole thing in stride.

There’s nothing actually _in_ the casket, of course. Dani doesn’t know how Jamie managed to explain that one, but somehow or another, the physical parts of her body have remained in the lake at Bly, undisturbed. She doesn’t know whether it’s easier or harder that way.

She watches her own funeral from a seat in the back row.

Afterwards, she doesn’t stick around. She wanders down Main Street to the Batten Kill River and wades in and goes… not home. Back. She has to sleep.

\---

Dani wakes and walks. Right into another memory.

Her and Jamie, sitting at the kitchen table in Bly. Owen is gone, Owen is home, arranging for his mum’s funeral. Hannah is somewhere. Her and Jamie are drinking tea that Jamie made, of course, and talking about nothing.

Dani has a book out. _The House of Mirth._ Someone, a bookseller in London, told her it was good. She’s iffy on it so far, but she doesn’t like giving up on things. Jamie is not-so-surreptitiously staring at the book while she drinks her tea and picks dirt out from under her fingernails.

“Any good?” she asks. Dani shrugs, sticking a bookmark in and pushing it to the side. 

“Not quite as interesting as this conversation.”

Jamie cocks her head. “We weren’t having a conversation, Poppins.” Dani makes a face, and Jamie’s head tilts back in recognition, a slow smile creeping across her features. “Heh. I see. That good, huh?”

“That good.” Dani drinks her tea. Jamie does make very good tea, Dani has come to know. “Okay, it’s boring. What are you doing?”

“Watching you read,” Jamie says simply, but just the way she says it makes it _sound_ flirty and Dani is reminded of her strong, dry grip, the slight squeeze of her hand, the lilt of her voice as she got in her truck, _who the hell knew._ Not a question, an answer. “But since you seem to have stopped that, suppose I’m looking for entertainment as well.” It’s an invitation, of that Dani is sure. “Have at it, Poppins. You’ve got my undivided attention. Anything you want to know, now’s the time.”

Now, Dani knows this is not true. But Jamie knows there are certain things Dani isn’t going to ask right now, just like Dani knows there are answers Jamie isn’t ready to give. It’s the same for both of them, really. Dani respects that Jamie knows that.

“What's your favorite flower?” The first question she asks is maybe a _bit_ too personal (at least for a gardener, she must have a biased opinion) but Jamie smiles anyway. “I mean, I know they're like your kids. It can be hard to pick a favorite, but-”

“Uh, there's a few I like." Jamie cuts off Dani's anxious rambling. "Can never go wrong with a decent rose. Lilies, as well, violets. Delicate things, though." She sips her tea with _flirty_ eyes. "Grow plenty of flowers here on the ground, but can't keep much at home without proper soil. Alas, parting is such sweet sorrow. But living away from the wee gremlins is likely healthy." A smile flickers over Dani's face, thinking of Jamie's fondness, carrying Flora to bed, Jamie tending to flowers in little pots on a kitchen counter.

“So where do you live?”

Jamie sips her tea. “Bly. Right above the pub. One little pub, one little flat, that’s me.” She licks her lips, the look she’s giving Dani makes her confused, so she stays quiet. Jamie sets her mug down heavily and her gaze turns determined. “Right then. My turn. Why’d you come to London?”

“I-” Dani contemplates lying, but something tells her Jamie doesn’t like being lied to. “I was… running from something. Or, I wanted to leave something. And see- be something else.” Again. An evasive answer. They’re full of those, but they have time. Time enough to answer all the questions that will come.

Jamie runs a hand through her hair. “I can understand that.” Her smile is soft, easy, and Dani gets the sense that Jamie likes being here as much as she does. “Right. Your turn, then.”

“Do you read?” Dani pats the cover of her book. Jamie shrugs.

“Here and there. I like mystery novels.”

And on and on it goes. Little facts, shared over a brew and a darkening sky. Eventually, Jamie has to go home. Eventually, Dani has to put the kids to bed. Eventually, life has to expand beyond the cozy little kitchen and the steadily growing _something_ between the two of them.

Dani walks Jamie out to her truck and thinks about kissing her. But she doesn’t. They have time.

\---

Dani sleeps. She wakes. She walks.

She watches Jamie.

Jamie is different than how Dani left her. Not heavier, not exactly, but different. She nurses grief like a strong drink, taking small sips at a time so as not to overwhelm herself and sliding the glass out of sight when it gets too much. But the burn never really goes away, like that whiskey they drank the night after they opened The Leafling, the bitter alcohol on Dani’s tongue all the way to sunrise. She imagines that’s what missing her is like, only a thousand times worse, since there isn’t anyone to kiss away the ghosts of it come morning.

Dani thinks about it sometimes. Reaching out and holding Jamie’s hand. Something pushes her back, something like time and memory and, in its own way, love. Because love and possession are opposites, and no one, not even desperate, dead Dani, should mix them up.

Jamie sleeps, wakes, and walks just like Dani does, just like Viola did, just like a ghost herself. She sleeps with the bedroom door open and the bathtub full. Sometimes, she gets brave enough to leave the hall door open as well. Dani makes sure to close it on those nights before she slinks off to watery oblivion, or the relaxing position in the window watching Jamie sleep. It’s dangerous. There could be criminals out there. Grief makes Jamie stupid, apparently.

Jamie wakes up and showers and makes tea and gets dressed and goes downstairs, and it’s _quiet._ Quieter than their apartment has ever been. Jamie doesn’t even flick on the radio to the classics channel like she used to, dancing around the kitchen to Fleetwood Mac and making a mess of whatever she's trying (and failing) to cook. She just… walks.

She fills orders and cuts flowers and arranges bouquets and delivers things. She does a wedding, a month or so after Dani leaves, for a blushing young bride and her dashing husband across the pond, a favor for an old friend. The bride is blonde, just this side of short, with full, pink lips and wide-spaced eyes, and Dani catches the way Jamie’s eyes linger as she walks down the aisle, just the slightest bit. But she goes back to work and she fills up the sink, too, that night. And Dani knows Jamie too well by now.

Dani misses Jamie’s voice. Living alone, she doesn’t hear it much. Years pass and Jamie talks a little more, to customers, to Owen, to people they knew in town. She hums to herself. That song, the one Dani can’t get out of her head. _But now alone I lie…_

Jamie is lonely. Dani considers leaving a message, decides against it. It’s the nights Jamie whispers that get her the most.

“Wish you were here,” Jamie says a lot. In her sleep. “Wish I could hold you.” 

Sometimes she wakes up from the nightmares clutching her neck. Sometimes she says “wish it was me.”

Other times it’s little things. Updates on the shop, her day, the gossip from the neighbors. Jamie needs someone to talk to, other than the plants. Dani can’t always tell if Jamie isn’t talking to the plants. She thinks she wouldn’t mind either way.

“I miss you today,” Jamie says at some point after sunrise, before sunset. “I miss your smell today” or “I miss your lips today” or “I miss your tea today” – that one Dani knows she’s lying about. It’s little moments she says it, while she’s potting a flower, digging up roots, pouring wine into a glass, picking up takeout, checking out at the pharmacy, pulling on a coat, lighting a cigarette, parking the car. It’s the moments when she twists a claddagh ring around the fourth finger of her left hand. At the beginning of the day it’s “I miss you.” At the end of the day it’s “I love you.”

Dani loves her too. She tells her so with every time she walks away.

\---

And into another memory.

Dani is sitting on the couch in the living room while a fire rages before them. Two nights after the lake, and none of them feel quite comfortable sleeping alone yet. Henry is on an air mattress a few feet away, tucked around the kids like a papa bear, and the sight of it makes Dani smile. Owen is curled up in the chair closest to the flames, clutching a crucifix in his left hand and snuggled under a few blankets. Dani knows the cold feeling of grief. She’s leaving him alone for now.

Jamie comes from the kitchen, two mugs of something steaming and rich in her hands. “Poppins,” she says quietly. Dani has been staring at her fingers for longer than she realized, but at Jamie’s beckoning gesture, she gets up and follows her out to the foyer.

Jamie leads them upstairs, down the wing to where Dominic and Charlotte once slept, the place that’s been blocked off since Dani got here. Through the bedroom, everything covered in cloth. Past the place where Dani laid, catching her breath, struggling to her feet because _Flora._ Out to the parapet.

Jamie nestles against the wall, fitting right in among the stone and ivy. She’s got her normal overalls on, a chunky sweater ( _jumper,_ she’d call it, Dani thinks with a smile) pulled over top, and her unruly curls are tucked into a warm looking hat. It may be nearing summer but cold night winds still linger, and Dani has learned that Jamie likes to be warm above all else.

She’s learned a lot of little things and it makes her _ecstatic._

“So…” Jamie says, handing Dani her mug. It isn’t tea like she expected; actually, it’s hot chocolate. Not quite as sweet as Dani makes it, but still thick and heavy and good on her tongue. She draws a long sip and lets the warmth spread down to her toes. “How are you holding up, Poppins?”

Dani chuckles, moving closer to Jamie, drawn to her in a way that she can’t really describe but she feels with every part of her. “I’m okay. All things considered, of course.”

“Of course.” A smile quirks onto Jamie’s lips. She reaches a hand and tangles her fingers with Dani’s, a moment so reminiscent of that night in the driveway that her breath catches. “I, uh. I think this is the quietest it’s ever been.” Jamie gestures out to the grounds, to Bly. And she’s right, Dani realizes. The manor feels still. And safe.

Except for the parts inside of Dani that feel so very _not_ safe.

She tucks herself further into Jamie’s warmth.

“I think… I think Henry wants to leave,” Jamie says softly, “leave here, I mean. This place holds too many memories now. Too many…” she chuckles. “Ghosts, I s’pose.”

“I can understand that,” Dani says just as softly. Something about this moment, despite their aloneness, feels like a quiet thing. “What about you?” she adds quickly. Almost afraid for the answer.

Jamie shrugs, taking in a deep, cold breath. “Dunno. Stay here, maybe, tend the grounds if Henry wants me to. If not…” She trails off, drinking from her mug. “Might travel a bit. Find somewhere else to settle.”

“Without ghosts?” Dani asks with a quirk of her lips.

“Without ghosts, coal dust, and all the rest of it.” Jamie stares out straight ahead, but a part of her is focused on Dani anyway. “Will you head back to the States?”

And Dani doesn’t know yet. She has nothing waiting for her there, nothing she wants to return to, anyway. The only thing she wants to return to, over and over again, is standing right here next to her, warm, safe, and real. She sighs.

“Jamie…”

“Yeah, Poppins?”

“We never got our drink in that pub, you know.” She looks in her eyes, tries to look innocent, and Jamie snorts a quiet laugh.

“Well, I did mean what I said.” She leans in, kissing Dani gently, softly, like she’ll break with anything harder. (She won’t, Jamie knows from experience, but it’s nice to be treasured anyway.) “There will be other nights. As many as you’d like, in fact.”

Dani hums. She thinks she’d like some other nights. She’s prepared to lean in again when Jamie’s face flashes with worry.

“Dani,” she says. “Dani, your eyes.”

This is where Dani usually wakes up.

\---

Dani doesn’t sleep when she watches Jamie. She doesn’t have to. She doesn’t _want_ to. Too much time not looking at her, not being able to touch her rough and warm skin and feel the whisper of her breath against her lips or her skin or just curl up against the _home_ of her, and she’s decided not to waste a second of what she does get: watching Jamie rest. Sleep. Sometimes not so well, when she thrashes and clutches her throat and screams words that sound like _take me with you._ Sometimes it’s better and she smiles and sighs and stretches her fingers to the other side of the bed; those are the mornings that are the worst for her, Dani knows.

She isn’t always watching Jamie. Sometimes she wanders to Iowa, sees her mother. In a nursing home now. Dementia, and complications from the drinking. The nurses who give her food are only slightly charmed by her stories about “my daughter and the man she forgot she was going to marry.” Dani never stays long.

Sometimes she lingers in the Seine and watches Owen walk. Here and there, everywhere, before work and after. He walks and holds out a hand, waiting for someone he’s lost to grab it. On the days when she’s strong enough, Dani walks alongside him. 

She watches Flora and Miles grow up through water, through mirrors. They’re strong and mature and smart and so _good_ and Dani misses them like crazy. Miles follows in his father’s footsteps and goes to law school. Flora works in an art museum. They’re both grown and good and safe, and that’s worth whatever else happened. Dani knows that without a doubt. Flora’s in love with someone. Miles is himself, alive. That’s… that’s worth it.

In the end, she always goes back to Jamie. She wanders to the full tub, she climbs out and drips her way to the living room or the bedroom or the shop or wherever, and she stays. Like she promised she would if she could, for as long as she can.

And then she sleeps. Wakes. Walks.

\---

She doesn’t go into the memories from the bad time. Only the good ones, the best ones, deserve reliving.

Memories like the ones of Jamie stomping through the snow in Vermont their first Christmas there, like a kid in a candy store with flushed cheeks and hands warm in her gloves. She sees an empty storefront just off Main Street and points at it. “Wonder how much they’re asking,” she says.

Memories like unlocking the door to _their place_ for the first time and seeing the way the sun comes in the windows, the cramped but cozy bedroom, the way Jamie fits in the space like it’s meant to be.

The memory in which Dani comes home from negotiating with the real estate guy and then buying rugs and then making a stop by the courthouse to pick up the visa paperwork, all to find Jamie has spent the entire day potting plants. And then putting the plants on tables to get enough sunlight. And then, _maybe,_ moving the couches into decent positions.

“You said, _I will put up the bed Dani, it will be easy,_ and then you didn’t.” This much is obvious, as Dani walks into the bedroom to find the mattress propped up against the wall and the pieces of the bed barely out of the box, halfway across the room.

“Okay,” Jamie drawls, stepping closer, her arms already encircling Dani’s waist. She’s in a classic _Jamie work outfit,_ worn flannel and ripped shorts and a crop top, because summers in Vermont are decidedly hotter than summers in England. “But in my defense… the plants look great.”

“Doesn’t matter,” and Dani really does her best to be stern as Jamie presses her up against the mattress, lips making their way down her neck. “I’m still – _Jamie, god_ – mad at you.”

“I can tell.” Jamie slides her hands around the backs of Dani’s thighs, just under her skirt for literal seconds before they come back up to run over her shoulderblades. “Wanna show me how much, hmm?”

Jamie and Dani and a mattress is a special thing, she thinks in the part of her mind still employing rational thought. Mattresses, after all, come with warranties, _one year guarantees_ that Dani has never quite been sure of. _One day at a time,_ she thinks every morning when she wakes up and looks over at Jamie, splendid and beautiful and somehow _with her,_ still. _One day at a time_ becomes _one month at a time_ slowly and then Dani is waking up and not thinking of the future in uncertain terms anymore and she finally allows herself to sign the lease renewal on the shop in her own name. Mattresses can be good, Dani decides. Promises like a bed that’s theirs and a life that’s theirs, really, are _great._

\---

Years pass and Jamie gets older. Lines – not laugh lines, not without Dani – set in around her eyes and mouth. Her skin mellows out. Maybe it comes from the afternoons she spends in the sun, working the ground into submission and burying dirt and bad feelings alike, the roots and pain of it sticking under the fingernails she sometimes forgets to wash. Some time ago she sold the apartment and got a little house. Dani likes the backyard. She likes to think of herself sitting out there with an iced tea while Jamie works. Watching her weed, calling out encouragement, making her laugh. Sometimes she dreams it up while she’s sleeping, just for a change of scenery.

Jamie’s hair goes light, then thin, then grey, much faster than it should. She’s only forty-three, but stress, love, and the act of missing can do a lot to a person. Dani watches the color fade, watches the way Jamie sighs when she looks in the mirror for more than the regular reason. She watches her grow it out, straighten it, and thinks she looks elegant like that. Even if deep down, it’s still her Jamie.

Dani, for her part, stays the same. Ghosts don’t age, after all. Not, at least, like humans do. But she doesn’t fade, either. Every time she catches a glimpse of herself in water, in a mirror, in the door of Jamie’s truck, she sees eyes, a nose, a mouth, a face. A face that lingers in Jamie's memory, and that's why she knows she's still here.

Dani might look the same, but she doesn’t _feel_ the same. Sometimes, it’s hard to reach out for the water in the bathtub, the Batten Kill, the sink at the back of The Leafling. Sometimes it’s hard to wake up and drag herself from the dreams. 

Jamie wouldn’t forget about her, that Dani knows. But the world will, like it forgets about everything else. Like it forgot Viola Lloyd and her dresses, deep underwater. Like it forgot Bly’s wandering ghosts. Like it forgot Dani and Jamie’s love, what that _meant,_ what it should have, somewhere along the way.

On one of the days Dani finds herself waking and walking and watching, one of the lone days, Jamie receives a letter with an invitation tucked inside. The invitation is to a wedding, but the letter comes from Owen.

_You should come,_ it says. _She doesn’t know it, but she’d want you there. Both of you. You’re still family, no matter how American you’ve become._ It makes Jamie laugh, just the smallest bit. _And if you don’t make it, even my wedding cake will be in tiers._

It’s so Owen, Dani finds herself missing him, as much as a ghost can miss. Jamie folds the letter up and tucks it under some receipts. Three months later, she packs a suitcase and gets on a plane to Northern California.

Dani sleeps. She wakes. She walks.

\---

To Paris this time.

The balcony at their hotel. An anniversary of sorts. Nine years in the making, this trip out to see Owen’s place and wander the city and eat too many pastries. Jamie is smoking, passing the cigarette to Dani’s hands every so often. She’s wearing nothing but a flannel shirt, misbuttoned. Dani is in a pair of Jamie’s boxers and a Patti Smith shirt that is probably also Jamie’s.

“Right. So tomorrow, Jardin de Luxembourg first, then Jardin des Plantes. Then dinner along the Boulevard Saint German, yeah? And Owen can get over himself, we’ll see him for breakfast the day after.” Dani won’t lie, she likes the curve of French on Jamie’s lips, complemented by the gentle roundness of her mouth as she takes a drag of the cigarette. She looks over, curious. “You still with me, Poppins?”

Anxiety in her voice that Dani placates with a hand on the small of her back and, well, ignorance (which they do say is bliss). “Sounds perfect, baby.”

Jamie turns around so her back is to the iron of the railing, and Dani steps in between her legs, leaning in just a little for a kiss. They’re never too far away that it’s hard. Jamie, Dani thinks, is her gravity well. Pulls her in and refuses to let her go. She’s drawn to her like moths to flames.

The feeling (more than the image) of the Lady’s reflection in the water pitcher lingers nonetheless. And Jamie knows it.

“Hey,” she pushes back on Dani’s shoulder, eyes full of worry. “What’s wrong?”

“You’ll remember me, right?” Dani practically crosses her eyes staring at Jamie’s lips. She can’t look her in the eye right now. “After she… after.”

Jamie grabs Dani’s face between her hands. “Is this about what Owen was saying earlier?” Dani shrugs. “Poppins, you’ve gotta be kidding.”

There’s an anger that simmers under Jamie right now. Not at Dani, no, never. At the Lady, who refuses to let go, who doesn’t know when she isn’t wanted. There’s an anger at the years they aren’t sure about yet, and anger at the uncertainty of even this moment and the hazel color of Dani’s left eye.

“I will never, ever, forget you.” Jamie reaches for one of Dani’s hands, places it on her chest. Dani feels her heart beating, sure and steady. Jamie does the same on her own chest. The gentle press of her palm is comfortable. Safe. “This? I couldn’t forget this if I lost everything else. Dani, you’re it for me.”

That’s all Dani needs to lean in again and forget against Jamie’s lips.

\---

Dani sits against the wall of the room she’s never been in before with her legs crossed and she listens to Jamie’s story. 

It’s good. A good retelling. Better than Dani herself could have done it. She smiles at the right bits and feels sad by the end. So, it seems, does everyone else.

Dani feels solid, too. Like her hands are real for the first time in a long time. Like the lake and the water are the way Jamie talked of them. Distant, dismal memory.

She watches Jamie talk to Flora afterwards, too. Sees her tell her _it’s worth it,_ words Jamie never could have said before. Sees Jamie say _it is rare, what you've got_ and look at every reflective surface in the room, just in case. When they hug, Dani feels the past coming back to wash over her.

She follows Jamie to the wedding the next night and watches them. Henry and Flora dance. Miles flirts uselessly with a bridesmaid. He kisses her knuckles and Dani is reminded of a little boy by a well, so innocent and so fractured at the same time. Owen toasts and Jamie toasts back. And for just a moment, Dani sees them as Jamie sees them. Young. The way they were. The way they still are inside, maybe.

She follows Jamie to her hotel room, watches with irritation fading to affection as Jamie fills the sink, the tub, leaves the door to the room open. She curls up in the chair, closes her eyes, and the room feels different.

There are no plants in this room. There is nothing for Jamie to watch over. Nothing for her to preserve and work for and maybe that’s for the best. Dani loves and she feels and downstairs, people dance and celebrate opportunity, and upstairs, Jamie… Jamie is here. Dani is here. All the way here.

Dani walks forward, lays a gentle hand on Jamie’s shoulder. “Hello, love,” she whispers. Jamie’s shoulder is both warm and cold under her fingertips.

Jamie opens her eyes. Smiles.

“Took you long enough, Poppins.”

**Author's Note:**

> jamie: i'm going to leave my door unlocked and open every night until the love of my life returns to me.  
> dani, observing this behavior: you're going to wHAT
> 
> (i'm not kidding, though. jamie, darling, this is how slasher movies start. just saying.)
> 
> ps. if anyone caught the antiquated lesbian cinema reference, drop it below and you'll get a lil mini round of applause. :)
> 
> come yell at me @amessofgaywords on twitter.


End file.
